Paris: With Pen and Pencil: Its People and Literature, Its Life and BusinessBartlett, D. W. (David W.)
History
Paris: With Pen and Pencil: Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business
Bartlett, D. W. (David W.)
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs
Is it well to look at so much nakedness, even if it be executed with the
highest art? In portions of the Louvre there is altogether too much
nakedness, and I humbly hope that American ladies will never get so
accustomed to such sights that they can stare at them in the presence of
gentlemen without a blush. I now allude to the most licentious pictures
in the collection. I saw French women stop and criticise pictures which
I could not look at, in their presence, at least--pictures which
exhibited the human form in a state of nudity, and at the same time
expressed the most shameful sensuality and portrayed the most licentious
attitudes. I cannot believe a woman of perfectly pure mind can delight
to look at such pictures in a public gallery. But this nakedness is all
of a piece with many other things which characterize French society, and
but shows the corrupt state of the morals of the French people.
[Illustration: JARDIN DES TUILLERIES.]
PUBLIC GARDENS.
The gardens of Paris are almost numberless. Some of them are free, and
others are open only to those who pay an entrance fee. The latter class
is great in numbers, from the aristocratic _Jardin d' Hiver_ down to La
Chaumiere. In the first you meet the fashionable and rich, and in the
last, the students with their grisettes, and the still poorer classes.
But I will not describe this class of gardens in this article.
The Tuileries gardens are perhaps as aristocratic as any in Paris, if
that term can be appropriately applied to a _free_ garden, and they are
certainly among the finest in the world. They are filled with statues
and fountains, trees and flowers. The western part is entirely devoted
to trees, almost as thickly planted as our American forests. The care
which is taken of this grove of trees surprised me, and I think would
any new-world visitor. The trees grow closely to the southern wall of
the gardens, yet do not protrude their branches over the line of the
wall. The sight is a singular one from the banks of the Seine, outside
the walls of the garden, for the whole grove looks exactly as if it had
been _sheared_ like a hedge. The branches have been so cared for and
trimmed, that the side presented is perfectly even and a mass of green.
Still this, though curious, is not beautiful. Trees need to grow
naturally for that. Art cannot surpass nature in this way. The grove is
full of beauty. Walks run every way over it, and the trees are so
trimmed and cultivated that beautiful arches are formed over nearly all
the paths. This constitutes the forest, one of the most singular in
Paris, and it is a novel sight to the stranger. On the north side of the
groves there is a collection of orange trees, and in among them are set
a large quantity of chairs, which are rented by a person in attendance
for two sous an hour. So for two cents, a man can sit and rest himself
in one of the most delicious spots in Paris. This is a peculiar feature
of all the gardens of Paris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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